To: IAHF List
Subject: ALERT! STOP FTAA FAST TRACK! STEPS TO TAKE BELOW:
From: "International Advocates for Health Freedom" jham@iahf.com
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 13:57:34 -0400

IAHF List: 15 minutes ago the text of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement went online for the first time so we can see it. Please examine it at http://www.FTAA-alca.org/alca_e.asp. This threatens to harmonize the whole western hemisphere to the Codex dictates and worse.

Now an effort called FAST TRACK will be voted on at some unknown time during this month of JULY, and we MUST stop it because it would hand to the President Godlike power to unilaterally negotiate regarding this unconstitutional "trade agreement" with ZERO checks and balances from Congress!!!

What we're seeing here is an effort to impose an EU styled totaliatarian dictatorship on the whole western hemisphere to expand NAFTA, and to harm-onize all laws between countries, as the latest effort to force us all into global governance wherein ALL of our rights would be stripped from us, and Big Brother would hold ALL the cards...

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Nine Steps YOU can take to Defeat Fast Track:

See http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/FastTrack/pointers-to-victory.htm

Your Senators and Congressman are home for 4th of July Recess July 1-7. PLEASE call their local offices to register your strong opposition to Fast Track!

See if your Senator or Congressman is in the Free Traders camp by examing their past voting history on these issues at http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/FastTrack/ftvotes_1.HTML

If they oppose fast track use the letter on the Nine Steps site to thank them, if they are pro free trade, use this letter below to communicate with them:

To: The Honorable _______________________

Dear (Senator, Congressman ___________________________

Since the legislative battle over NAFTA in 1993, I have been following the politics of international trade and investment with much interest. I was one of the few who were aware of the GATT's transformation into the WTO (and my how their profile has risen). Currently I am dismayed at the potential impact that Mexican trucks will have on U.S. traffic safety and disgusted (but not surprised) at the choice of Qatar as the site of the next WTO Ministerial. But this letter is not about that.

This letter is about the pending Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). I think that anyone who is paying attention has a good idea what FTAA is about; basically expanding NAFTA to the entire hemisphere (excepting Cuba).

In talking to people who are monitoring FTAA as close as possible it sounds like the FTAA will marry the worst of NAFTA and WTO. By this I mean the combining NAFTA's Investor to State Dispute Resolution process (private investors get to sue governments) with the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (representing the commercialization and privatization of traditional public sector activities).

Of course no one can prove this, as the draft, though said to be 95% complete, has not been made public (not even to Congress). I understand that the USTR's position is now public, but we are still waiting on the draft. My sense is that Fortune 500 companies will benefit greatly from a FTAA but that workers will be pitted against workers, environmental concerns will be sidelined, and that the power of elected governments, at all levels, to create and implement policy will be eroded. I think that the architects of corporate lead globalization are afraid of the people and democracy and are doing all that they can to keep the light of day away from their efforts.

I suspect that you lean towards the Free Traders camp, but I hope that as an elected official you will look at the larger picture of how these trade agreements undermine democracy and the institution which you now serve.

We can be sure that President Bush will be asking Congress for Fast Track authority . Back in the 1970s, when trade was mostly about goods and tariffs, Fast Track may have been reasonable. Now, these trade deals can affect every aspect of our lives from the quality of the food we eat to the safety of the trucks on our highways to ability of government to pass innovative legislation. Please promise me that you will never vote to relinquish your duty to oversee trade agreements and to keep an open mind when carrying out that duty.

Sincerely,